March 3, 2026Open Access

Analysis of 18 mercapturic acids in urine samples from the German Environmental Specimen Bank—tackling the data gap in the human biomonitoring of VOCs in Europe

Puntos clave

Ubiquitous exposure to multiple volatile organic compounds was identified, indicating significant health implications.
The study found a decreasing trend over time for most urinary metabolites, raising concerns about long-term exposure.
Assessment involved quantifying 18 mercapturic acids across 360 urine samples from 2000 to 2021 in Germany.
This highlights the urgent need for more comprehensive human biomonitoring to address VOC exposure risks.

Resumen

Comprehensive human biomonitoring (HBM) data with regard to the exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Europe is lacking. This prompted us to quantify 18 mercapturic acids as urinary VOC metabolites in 360 samples from the Environmental Specimen Bank collected between 2000 and 2021 in Germany. Our study demonstrates the ubiquitous exposure to numerous VOCs of high toxicological relevance, albeit with a decreasing trend over time for most of the metabolites. This emphasizes the need for a broader HBM to better understand the risk of VOC exposure in Germany and more general in Europe.

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Cite This Study

Pluym et al. (Wed,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69a75c14c6e9836116a24879 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-026-00838-x

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